[frivolity]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Except no such character exist! And if we were to use him/her, it would be created from our minds and be filled with our ideas!

This is just another way of using real life standards that you said we shouldn't.

Except no such character exist! There's no magical character that is the ultimate form of reason.

Now we're getting somewhere! You're finally getting it!

Yes, such a character does not exist. As I said, such a character is merely a theoretical construct and forms a base for us to debate. Yes, this reasonable character is created from our minds, so what's reasonable and what's unreasonable is exactly what we should be debating about!

It should also not be about what the characters themselves see, because the characters don't observe everything that the author is trying to tell us. So instead we think about what the reasonable person in the character's position would see, and we think about whether it's true that the character should see it.

After going through this process of reasoning, only then should we debate. The debate about Yozora and bullying should not be about what we personally think about bullying, or about what Kodaka sees, or even debating that no logic applies at all. It should be about the whether it would be reasonable to construe Yozora's actions as bullying in the context of Haganai, or whether it's so unreasonable that the author could not have meant for us to make such an inference. This is why I've been saying that the reasonable person is a theoretical construct to be used as a base with which we can focus our debate and discussion!

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

You're essentially going, "Nope, I don't agree with these characters, I want someone that I can agree with- That person must be right."

No, I'm going, "The author has dropped several hints that the character himself hasn't seen. So-and-so is what I believe to be reasonable to infer in the context of the story. Now let's debate about this view, instead of debating what the character himself sees since he has most likely missed some things."

I'm not saying that we can all ultimately agree on one viewpoint. Of course we won't. But that's the whole point of debating and discussing, and by focusing on both the realm of the story and on what's reasonable for the story, our discussion would be much more objective and robust.

Originally Posted by potchip

In my view you simply get it, or you don't. What you are suggesting is a slippery slope in anime critique. Next thing you know, characters have disproportional eyes and I can't take them seriously anymore. The problem with the previous sentence is, you are not supposed to take certain aspects seriously, somethings in anime are taken for granted. Some traits will be exaggerated. Feel free to judged based on morality but don't expect other people to take such judgements seriously either. It's like arguing about the physics of shounen. Where does that leads to? What is a 'reasonable person's subjective observation but not Kodaka' anyway? I agree Kodaka is an unreliable narrator because himself is also flawed. I don't agree his flaw is overly nonchalant - his primary problem is afraid of change and does not seek feedback - so he tends to get the wrong impressions of many situations.

Not sure what you're getting at here. When I talk about reasonable persons, I'm not referring to real-life persons who have no knowledge of anime. I'm not saying that we should ask our neighbours who aren't anime fans what they think. I'm saying that in thinking about the issues of the anime, we should think about what we believe a reasonable person in the story would think. It's a more objective approach than simply saying stuff like, "I have a friend who bullied me in the same way that Yozora is doing to Sena, so I think Yozora is a bully." It is also more accurate than saying, "Kodaka thinks this, so that's the way it is." Since we're looking from the perspective of a reasonable person IN THE ANIME, obviously the fact that some traits will be exaggerated is already known.

It leads to the question, "What would a reasonable person in the Haganai-universe think?" That is the question that we should be debating about.

Originally Posted by potchip

As for trying to come up with a universal scale on a characters' personalities - first of all, there's no universal scale even in real life - no personality is absolutely BETTER than another, and then we are just talking about single personality traits. When a character has multiple traits like any other person would, there's no point trying to be objective, and furthermore laughable to even contemplate it.

I can use words to describe what I consider the traits of each character, and list them. I can even go as far as ranking them in prominence. But even then there are too many variables for comparison, and some people would rather use ONE word to describe a character.

In a way the current character interactions are in equilibrium. Yozora is a sadist, Sena is a narcissistic. If you imagine instead a 'nice' Yozora, given what I know about Sena's character and other things being equal, Sena will get carried away and antagonise Yozora instead, and you get a horde of people hating on Sena. And I hate boring characters - if Yozora is nice - well, there's one less interesting character in this show. Just the other side of the coin.

And last words - instead of disagreeing with what a character's portrayed and trying to pigeon hole them into some sort of 'ideal' character that you'd want to see, (and complain about how the character isn't this and that) try spend more time looking at different aspects of a character and think about what the author/producer is trying characterise.

I think I've addressed most of the points here. It's not about coming up with a universal scale that everyone can agree on. It's about everyone using the same base with which we can discuss and debate in a more robust manner.


Edit: Just saw the edited post above.

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

This is just another way of using real life standards that you said we shouldn't because we have no view on the regular people of Haganai.

Any 'ordinary reason person' would then be a product of the viewers ideas and belief, that's bias right off the bat.

We're indeed using real life standards in a different way, and that makes all the difference in the world. Instead of saying, "I think the practice of forcing youths in the tribe in Brazil to wear gloves full of Bullet Ants is inhumane," we're now saying, "I can see how the tribe views the ritual as a coming-of-age, even if such practices would be unacceptable where I come from." This particular point is not a criticism against your earlier discussions, but against the members who come into the thread saying that they consider Yozora's actions to be a form of bullying since they themselves would not tolerate it.